Prostate Drug Avodart May Slow Early-Stage Cancer

A treatment drug currently given to patients with an enlarged prostate gland might also have a role to play in treating prostate cancer, according to new research.

So long as it hasn't spread, Dutasteride - marketed by GlaxoSmithKline as Avodart - is capable of slowing down the progression of prostate cancer, scientists in Canada say.

Details of their work appear in the Lancer medical journal and describe how, when supplied to patients at an early stage in the cancer's development, Dutasteride could potentially lower or put off the need for surgery and radiotherapy - processes that can sometimes trigger the onset of incontinence and/or impotence.

Avodart Prostate Cancer Research

Prostate cancer affects an estimated 20 per cent of men living in the US at some point during their lives. For the most part, these will be so-called ‘low grade' prostate cancers which, more than anything else, need to be examined regularly through biopsies but don't necessarily require therapy at first.

The Canadian team responsible for this new Avodart prostate cancer research hails from Toronto's Princess Margaret Hospital and is spearheaded by Doctor Neil Fleshner.

Together, Fleshner and his colleagues studied medical data relating to just over 300 men. All the men were aged somewhere between 48 and 82 years old and none had advanced, high-risk prostate cancer. The men were divided up into two groups and, over the course of 36 months, were supplied with either a course of Avodart or a placebo and biopsies were carried out at both the midway stage and at the trial's conclusion.

Early-Stage Prostate Cancer

The outcome was that, between the Avodart and the placebo groups, there was a 10 per cent difference in the number of patients who'd gone on to develop something more than early-stage prostate cancer, weighed in the prostate gland drug's favour.

"These data are consistent with the hypothesis that dutasteride reduces the volume of low-grade prostate cancers but has no effect, or even an adverse effect, on the progression of high-grade disease", UK-based Professor, Chris Parker, explained in an editorial run alongside the Lancer's study dutasteride report.

He added: "Thus, although reducing overall prostate cancer detection, dutasteride could plausibly have no effect (or possibly a deleterious one) on prostate cancer mortality."